Walk-in registration began Tuesday at all Rock Valley College locations for the spring term. Students are encouraged to register early to ensure...

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Still time to registerWalk-in registration began Tuesday at all Rock Valley College locations for the spring term. Students are encouraged to register early to ensure getting their preferred classes.Spring classes begin Monday, Jan. 13.Go to rockvalleycollege.edu/getstarted to find out how to get started at RVC.

ROCKFORD — If you haven't enrolled for spring classes yet at Rock Valley College, administrators are waiting, anxiously, for you to get moving.

Trustees huddled Tuesday for the last of six ad hoc meetings — a months-long process to better understand the student recruitment and enrollment process at the city's community college and the marketing initiatives behind it.

The expectation is that enrollment will remain flat this academic year, but priority registration for current students ended Friday, and about 3,500 still hadn't registered for the spring term.

Open enrollment began Monday.

"We used to book 75 percent of our credit hours during the priority registration period," said Amy Diaz, vice president of student development. "This year, it's 62 percent. There's still this very strange phenomenon that students don't feel the urgency to register. They're getting the message, but they don't seem to be acting on the message."

Administrators are attempting to improve outreach to students and prospective students. New television and radio ads are being broadcast in Spanish to reach Latinos — the fastest-growing segment of RVC's student population.

The college's website is getting a makeover with the goal of being more mobile-friendly, and staffers are using social media more frequently to communicate with students and the community.

When students do enroll at Rock Valley, the college's efforts are aimed at keeping them. Seven percent of students graduate within two years, compared with 12 percent nationally at community colleges, according to statistics compiled by the college.

To that end, administrators are working on a campaign to achieve 2,370 degree or certificate completers annually by 2025. "Right Place to Start," a state-funded program open to Rockford School District graduates or residents, has found success keeping students on track and boosting academic achievement by providing life coaches and additional academic support.

Rock Valley is also in talks with officials at Northern Illinois University and Rockford University to offer a reverse articulation program that would allow students who left RVC before obtaining an associate degree to obtain one after completing the necessary coursework at the university and before obtaining a bachelor's degree.

This way, RVC can track how many of its students complete an associate degree even if they fail to complete a four-year degree.

Board member Lynn Kearney isn't discouraged by the enrollment lag: "If change is going to happen, it's got to be a cultural change. The whole community has to decide that higher education is important."